Persona 3: Fate's Final Call
by Orpheus-Telos628
Summary: "If you had the opportunity to relive your life, would you take that chance?" I'm dead "As good as that may sound, I think I have to say 'No'." 'Time never waits. It delivers us all equally to the same end.' SEE PROFILE FOR FULL SUMMARY


**Persona 3: Fate's Final Call**  
><strong>Author: Orpheus-Telos628<br>Chapter 1: Beyond the Barrier**

**-}+{-**

Blinking once, then twice, and a third time. Everything is so... Bright. I guess this is death. This is what most people are afraid of? Dying isn't so bad, at least not to me. I turned around and started walking, my bare feet tapping lightly on the invisible flooring. Looking around, I could see nothing but white. It's like being trapped inside a giant bubble, or a shield. I stopped walking and closed my bluish-grey eyes tightly, listening. I could hear the faint echo of another's footsteps, slowly increasing in volume.

A sudden halt, and the loss of noise made me flinch slightly. I reopened my eyes, only to discover that I was no longer surrounded by complete nothingness. I was standing on a cliff-edge, my toes curling into the slightly damp earth. Turning away from a seemingly bottomless drop, I came face to face with a small meadow filled with green grass and flourishing Cyclamen. 'The flower of resignation and good-byes? How ironic'. I began my trek through the greenery, back in the direction I came and away from the edge, thoughts of the unknown footsteps far from the front of my distracted mind. Where was this? I thought that Cyclamen flowers mostly grew in Europe, but I've always lived in Japan. Why was there a field of them expanding this far? Was I even still IN Japan?

Heh, Junpei would probably poke fun at me constantly for weeks if he found out I knew this much about flowers. I guess being raised solely by your grandmother will do that to a guy. No, no no no. I need to stay focused on finding out where I am. I froze when a sudden gust of wind rustled my unruly dark blue hair. Thats right...

I'm dead

I was listening to Aigis on the rooftop of Gekkoukan High-school, and I just felt so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I could hear everyone running up the stairs to meet us there, but Aigis was... Why had she been crying? It was graduation day and everyone had regained their memories of the Dark Hour, so why had she been sad? Oh, right...

She probably knew I was dying, or 'going far away' at the very least.

My thoughts kept going back to that. It should be more awkward to think of myself as dead, but I'm finding little difficulty.

"It's because you aren't dead, technically."

I whirled around so fast the red, purple, and green of my surroundings blurred together. Standing before me was none other than Ryoji Mochizuki. Not as Nyx's Avatar or as Pharos, but a the high-school transfer student from over-seas. I said nothing, simply stared in horror at his pale face, noticing that his eyes were once again that ephemeral blue, all but glowing in their sockets.

"I bet you're wondering why I'm here?" he said cheerfully, smiling brightly at me. I didn't bother to nod, simply continued to stare in obvious disbelief. "Okay, then," he continued on unperturbed. "Your soul did not die when you sealed Nyx, it simply became... Trapped, is the best word I can think of to describe it."

"Trapped?" I questioned, my voice rasping from apparent disuse. How long had it been since I had last spoken aloud? I couldn't tell if that was a good or bad sign, let alone how long it had actually been.

"It's good to hear your voice after so long!" Ryoji exclaimed merrily, his smile growing tenfold. "You've been gone for quite some time now. Six hundred thirty seven years, I think." I could feel my eyes widen immensely in shock. Over six centuries? It only felt like a few minutes. But then again, I was also supposed to be blocking Erebus from reaching Nyx, but I couldn't recall actually experiencing anything of the sort. "Your consciousness only reawakened a short while ago, so it may seem like very little time has passed," Ryoji kindly informed me, unaware that I had just been thinking along those lines. "I'm here to tell you that there is no longer a need for the seal. As it turns out," his bright smile turned bitter, "there was no need for Nyx to get involved. Mankind destroyed itself pretty thoroughly."

"It what? It couldn't have. I would have known if Erebus-"

"It wasn't Erebus. Or Nyx, or anything shadow related that brought about The Fall. Not this time. It was the idiocy of many people, dragging the entire planet into their struggle for power." Ryoji frowned, anger clearly dominating his other emotions. "Earth became barren, and wars were raged over the span of many centuries. Japan was one of the first to fall," he told me as tears created a crystal sheen over his eyes.

I had absolutely nothing to say, not that I was overly talkative to begin with, but this was... "Then why are you here?" I couldn't help but ask. I had died a long time ago apparently, as had my friends, so what did this have to do with me?

"If you had the opportunity to go back and relive your life, would you take that chance?" His eyes twinkled mischievously, all previous signs of sorrow wiped clear.

I opened my mouth to answer 'Yes' but then snapped it shut when an errant thought passed through my head. I had no regrets so I would, without a doubt, do the exact same thing time and again. I wouldn't change who my friends were, what jobs I would take for some extra spending money, fighting shadows to protect people from the inevitable, dying on January thirty-first to prevent 'The Fall'... I had lived a full life in my seventeen years, so would I really HAVE to live it again, only to create the same end result?

"As good as that may sound, I think I have to say no. I'm happy with the way things turned out. Not that I think the world ending is a good thing, but it ended when humans decided to be stupid and end it themselves, with their own power, nothing supernatural. I can come to terms with that, at least. And besides, I had no regrets when I chose to become the seal, and I have none now. I would continue to make that same choice every time, so reliving my life would be pretty pointless, don't you think?" And now it was my turn to smile. Not so much smile as give a small and barely perceptible smirk, but whatever.

"I thought you might say that, which is why you won't be living as Minato Arisato." And now I was completely lost. Live, but not as myself?

"What are you talking about? How could I...?" Oh no, there was no way I was going to-

"You will be living in a world that is parallel to your original one, with your soul being reborn. The only difference between this and reincarnation is the fact that you will remember your experiences... For the most part, anyway," he finished lamely. "And this wasn't my idea, or Igor's or Elizabeth's. The orders came from even higher than that."

"And you know who gave these 'orders'?" I asked skeptically, slightly angered at not really being given a choice in the matter at hand.

"But of course!" he answered back smugly, his tone laced with good humor. "Did you know Igor has a boss?" I was asked suddenly.

"I could guess as much."

"I don't really know what his name is, but he's the one who gives most people the power of persona, usually disguising himself as a blue butterfly when he visits the human world." My eyes widened again as a sudden memory flashed before my eyes. That first night on the train, when I arrived in Iwatodai for the first time in ten years.

'Time never waits. It delivers us all equally to the same end. You, who wish to safeguard the future, however limited it may be... You will be given one year; go forth without falter, with your heart as your guide...'

That damn bastard, whoever it turned out to be, knew that people would eventually destroy themselves. He had practically told me that night. But did that mean it was thanks to him we were able to stall the end for as long as we did? But Ryoji said that he gave 'most' people the power of persona. That meant-

"Am I an exception to the rule, then?" It was more of a statement than a question, but I had to be sure.

"Still sharp as ever. Yes, those in the Velvet Room do not know how you were able to obtain the power you possessed previously, but it did not come from them, which begs the question..." He trailed off, waiting for me to finish.

"How, exactly, did I get a persona?"

"In this second life, you have the opportunity to find out."

This mystery place was wavering, fading in and out. The edges of my vision shifting from white to black and back again. I couldn't leave yet! There were still too many questions that hadn't been answered.

"Will my showing up kill this other person?" Above all else, I couldn't live with that guilt.

"They would never have existed."

Everything was spinning now, turned around and upside down. A searing pain spread from my skull and engulfed my entire body, arms and legs siezing with the strain of remaining upright. This place, what I now knew to be my sanctuary, burned red as everything shattered.

**-}+{-**

**A/n: Alright, for those of you who don't know, this is my first story to be posted on this wonderful website we all know and sorta tolerate. For all intents and purposes, my name is Orpheus-Telos628 (OT628 or something else you may decide to call me for short, I don't particularly care XD) and I am now officially an author... Kinda. Anyway, I have to thank every one of you for taking precious time out of your day to read this story. ****Since this is my first posting of my first chapter for my first story (That is a **_**lot**_** of firsts D=), any comments and/or suggestions will be very much appreciated. On a side note, I am also going to be looking for a Beta in the very near future, so if you are interested please let me know! I will try to keep my authors notes short from now on, but with this only being the intro, well... It should be okay.**

**Thank you again for reading!  
>Orpheus-Telos628<strong>


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